“Okay,” she said, drawing it out.

“Sean was friendly with a group in Horseheads,” I said to change gears. “A society or club, if you will, called the Mares of Thrace.”

Her eyes flickered the way an amateur card-counter’s will when she’s doing the math.

“Sean mentioned a clique.”

“And what a clique! The Mares of Thrace are animists dedicated to the genius loci of the Valley of the Horses’ Heads. They’re a blood cult. Live longer, live better through murder. Add a dash of UFO-ology, and we’ve got real winners on our hands. Too melodramatic?”

“It’s melodramatic,” she said.

“Christians subscribe to a risen lord and foist original sin on a serpent talking some chick into biting a magic apple. For some reason, that’s mainstream.”

“I don’t quite know how to respond. What do you want me to say?”

“You never interacted with the Mares?”

“Not at all.”

“Danny B and his cronies weren’t interested in your husband as a friend. Sean was marked for death. That’s my theory. It gets worse. What if Sean was only the last in line? What if some, or all, of those accidents at the Jeffers site were orchestrated? Ritual sacrifices. Same as the Aztec priests and the Celtic druids. A lunatic’s notion of consecration.”

She laughed in a short, harsh burst of incredulousness.

“That’s crazy.”

“Craziest motive for murder I’ve ever run across. Yet, here we are. Nothing new when it comes to innocent folks paying for the insanity of a grasping few.” I nodded at Sean’s ring on the table. “I’ve struggled with why he stashed these sacred items in a floor vent at his buddies’ apartment prior to his death. He was disoriented and brainwashed. A part of him clung desperately to sanity. The part that realized he’d gone down the path of no return. I spoke with a medical professional who provided an off-the-record diagnosis. Sean exhibited signs of early-onset dementia. There’s another explanation. A person who consumes quantities of tainted animal matter—rotten meat, for example—is at risk of contracting blood-borne illnesses. His autopsy didn’t screen for bovine spongiform encephalopathy, but I’d bet my bottom dollar he had mad cow disease, or a related virus. Slow, insidious, and terminal.”

Linda massaged her forehead.

“No.”

“I strongly believe your husband intended to join a secret society. The night he died was to be his initiation. He came to that pit of his own free will, a supplicant seeking transformation. The Mares prefer the stench of black blood and green meat, but the sacred offering to the spirit of the Valley had to be pure. So, Sean was cleansed and anointed with oil and dressed in linen garments. He was escorted to Shaft 40 in the dead of night and thrown in. Danny Buckhalter and the others deceived him. They stole his life.”

Linda covered her mouth and coughed that dry, ratcheting cough while I spoke. She lowered her hand.

“Mr. Coleridge, I don’t know much. Except colors. I can wax rhapsodic about color theory. Hue and texture. The joys of and dangers of saturation. Value, tone, and mood. The color of genius. Of sorrow. Fury. Your color isn’t pleasant. You’re a mess.”